How it Feels to Be Alive
by Aisline
Summary: As he yearns to end his wanderings and return home, Aragorn learns that not all journeys of the soul involve travel. 3rd Place Teitho "Journeys".


Disclaimer: I do not own "The Lord of the Rings". Any recognizable characters and settings do not belong to me and are being borrowed at no profit to myself.

Summary: As he yearns to end his wanderings and return home, Aragorn learns that not all journeys of the soul involve travel.

Feedback: Very much appreciated! This is my first fanfic, so please drop me a line :-)

_Oh when the wild was all covered by snow,  
I forgot the colors that the grass tend to glow,  
Oh the trees were all leafless, and lifeless and black,  
and I wondered if the leaves could grow back_

For your heart is like a flower, it grows,  
and it_'__s the rain, not just the sun that lets it bloom,  
and you don't know how it feels to be alive,  
until you know how it feels to die_

_-Noah and the Whale, __"__The Shape of my Heart__"_

Branches swayed in the wind, and small snowflakes fell gently from the grey sky. The landscape was peaceful, and quiet. There had been a heavy snowfall in the night, and the land was covered with virgin snow. Deceptively attractive, for it was bitterly cold, as all winter days are in the North. The animals had long since fled to their homes, avoiding the harsh sting of winter.

Only one still moved in the open, walking with head bowed into the wind. The lone traveler broke through the blanket of snow, and his breathy huffs traveled over the silent land. If an animal had been out on that day he would have seen the man, and wondered what he was doing so far from his home, and what he thought of as he walked. But the animals were all in their nests, and their holes, and their hollows, and there was none there to wonder at the traveler.

No doubt the traveler would have missed the companionable presence of the woodland animals, if he hadn't felt quite so poorly. His clothes were sodden, his hair and beard (it was a fool who shaved in winter) were dirtied and itching, and the leather of his boots seemed one with his feet.

Aragorn had indeed been traveling long to appear so ragged. Even in the bitter cold did the roads need watching, for the enemy did not hibernate, and the threat of wolves was in fact much greater due to the lack of game. The rangers noticed too the lack of food, and it was near impossible to live from the land in the winter. Aragorn had travel to the villages around Bree-land often to replenish his food supplies. But these side trips did little good for him, for his funds did not allow him to stay for longer than a few hours, and one night at most could he spend in the village inn.

Rangering was a thankless job year-round, but one tended to notice it the most in winter. It was hard to be turned away from stores and inns on account of the suspicions of the owner when one's nose and toes felt like they were going to fall off at any minute. It was harder still to know that these hardships were self-imposed, and this was the thought currently occupying the traveler's mind.

From an early age, responsibility had been pressed on Aragorn. It was a thing to be proud of and glad for, and most certainly it was not to be shirked. So it was when the rangers had assembled just as the waters were starting to freeze, Aragorn had not put a second thought into insisting he guard the western borders of the Shire that winter. It was not a right of the Chieftain to order his men to their work, and stay in the Rangers' camp to sit out the weather in front of the hearth like a fat cat. No. It was in fact a responsibilityof the Chieftain to work harder than his men, and to pour his heart into that work.

Aragorn understood this, for he had breathed the notion since he was old enough to understand words. When he had joined the Rangers, and taken his rightful place as Chieftain, he would have laughed at the idea that he would have done anything other than throw himself into the duty of a Ranger, instead choosing to stay home with the maidens.

But his frozen fingers told a different story now.

Life as a Ranger was problematic, to say the least, when the wild was all covered by snow. Aragorn had not undressed for weeks now. He would have frozen if he had tried. There was no water to bathe in that did not freeze your heart when you touched it, or that you wouldn't need to break through inches of ice to reach.

The layers of clothes closest to Aragorn's body were cold and stiff with dried sweat, and his skin's incessant itching made Aragorn feel as if he would go insane. The outer layers were covered in the grime and dirt, and long since wet.

The wetness was perhaps the most terrible curse of winter in the wilds. One rain or snowstorm was enough to soak a Ranger to the skin, and after that there was no going back. Even on the occasional nights when Aragorn felt safe enough to light a fire, the warmth was never enough to reach through all the thick layers and dry them, or allow the warmth to come to Aragorn's body.

His boots were perhaps the worst of all, as they were subject to trudge through the snow and pools of muddy water encountered on the Ranger's wanderings. They had long since become part of Aragorn's numb feet.

When Aragorn had come back to the Ranger's camp after his first winter patrol, his feet had been in the worst shape of his whole body. Gilraen had been there, visiting with her parents, and awaiting the return of her son before traveling back to Imladris. Upon her son's return to her house, she had thrown up her hands and tutted at his shabby state. She sat him down in a chair and fetched a basin of warm water, for Aragorn to soak his feet before attempting the removal of his boots. She had fussed over him and his weight, before Aragorn turned to her and admonished her in a serious voice.

"Do not fret so, Mother. This is the result of the duty of the Dunedain. It is the duty of Men to sacrifice home comforts in order to protect our lands and our womenfolk." And Gilraen had laughed at his proud words (only a soft chuckle, she was not so heartless to offend him with a belly-laugh), but Aragorn could see the mirth that she hid in her eyes.

He had hardly ever seen his mother laugh, even in his early childhood. Gilraen had been widowed before she had passed her twenty-seventh summer, before the woman of the Dunedain would have usually taken a husband, and the pain followed her and settled on her shoulders as a perennial weight.

But now she laughed and she ran her hand through her son's matted hair in a gentle caress. Aragorn had wanted to ask her why she laughed, for he was rankled that his noble words should have been so received. But at the moment, Ivorwen had entered with a basket of clean linens for her Aragorn, and told him that it was the right of every mother to fuss over their child. Gilraen had turned away then to her own mother, and the sadness was back—in her eyes, in her proud body's stoop, and the lines that creased her face.

The moment had passed, and Aragorn never did ask Gilraen his question.

But as he toiled now through the snow, Aragorn knew the answer. Gilraen was of high lineage, and Arathorn had married a woman in all ways his equal. She was wise, and had learned the bitterness of reality at twenty-six, and here was her son at much the same age, foolishly proud, naïve, and with an air of such long-suffering nobility. Aragorn knew his words would have been as laughable to her then as they were now to him.

He had grown since that first winter as a Ranger. His back was bent with his struggles, his hands were calloused, and his body scarred from innumerable fights. His noble illusions were gone now, and his youth as well—long spent on thankless travels and fruitless quests. And there was no going back, for this was the fate of a Ranger, and it would be his fate until he took his dying breath and gave back the Gift. Achieving nothing more in his life than to pass the burden to his son, keeping alive a dead bloodline.

And Aragorn was tired of it. He was so tired. He coughed, and his lungs ached at the rush of frozen air, and his whole body ached at the movement. He had spent Yuletide alone, with not even a fire to sit with. There were no calendars in the wild and dates mattered not, but he had passed through Combe just a few days before, and learned of the proximity of the holiday. The night he had calculated to be Yule, he had sat against the round trunk of an old tree, under the large boughs drooping with the weight of the snow.

He had thought of Imladris then, and he had ached for the comfort of his home, for there he had given his heart away, and there it would always rest. He had thought of the Hall of Fire, and the feasts of Yuletide. The faces of all whom he loved gathered around for cheer and merrymaking.

That was where Aragorn made his first mistake, for he had not been to Imladris in many years, wandering the wild and returning to the Ranger's camp instead. But on that night a yearning to return to his beloved home was born deep inside him.

He had wandered the borders of the Shire for a few weeks after that, before turning his feet eastward. He had developed this cough then, and had had no reprieve from it since. Then Aragorn made his second mistake. His yearning for home was stronger than his reason, for he did not turn southwards to make a loop that would take him through Bree, where he could have rest, and medicines, and replenished supplies, instead heading straight east for the long road to Imladris.

It had taken Aragorn much longer to reach the borders of the hidden valley than he had anticipated. He had decided against traveling through the marshes, as they were frozen over at this time of the year, and one misstep would send Aragorn through the ice into the bone-chilling depths below. A complete soaking in the freezing marshes in wintertime would be the death of any man. Aragorn had instead followed the Road, and traveled on a great loop south to avoid the marshes.

Even on the road, Aragorn had not made any great time. He was forced to spend time searching for the sparse winter plants, and any game that could be found, for his supplies had quickly run low. His cough, and the fever that had set in soon after he set his path for Imladris, drained his strength and left a weariness in his bones that did not leave. Soon after he had crossed the Last Bridge, he had given up his search for food and instead pressed on harder for Imladris.

The last of his food had been eaten yesterday, and now Aragorn ignored the twinge of his stomach, for there was nothing to be done.

His journey had been long and hard, and Aragorn craved more than he had thought possible a warm bed and a hot meal. It was maddening to be so close to what he desired the most and have it be unattainable. He had wandered on the borders of the hidden valley for most of the day, and was no closer to finding it. The landmarks and the stones which would have aided his path were long obscured by the snow. He knew this land well, but the frost and snow and dead trees had changed it to a point that it was barely recognizable to Aragorn.

Night was fast approaching, and as the darkness fell, the cold became more intense. Aragorn kicked out at the snow beneath him in his frustration, but it was icy and all Aragorn felt was a dull throb of pain from his numb foot. He knew he was no more than a half of an hour's travel from his home, where it was warm and safe, and he could not reach it. He felt as if he were a beggar, wandering the dead woods blindly, wretched and alone.

He felt a surge of anger for those who had done this to him. He could see the elves singing, Lord Elrond on his gilded chair presiding over the festivities, watching his daughter dance and laugh, raven-black hair fanning out behind her as she raised her hands and twirled… but it was not his fate to sit in peace in the fair house of Elrond. So he had been told, by those he held most dear to his heart, and he had believed them.

So it was that he was now trapped on the outside, with no way back home. Aragorn could feel the fever in his blood, and he sweated, but he felt no warmer for it. The trees around him were leafless and lifeless and black, and Aragorn wondered how the leaves could ever grow back to what they had been before the frosts of winter. His feet stumbled, and as he fell to his hands, he saw the death around him, and he knew the leaves and the flowers could never come back after such hardship.

His strength gave out and he fell to the hard ground, and Aragorn felt the consciousness leaving him. Had an animal happened upon him then, they would have seen his still body, with icicles hanging on his beard and eyelashes, and perhaps they would have felt sad at the loss of a life, and perhaps even pondered the foolishness of man to be bested so by nothing more than winter. But the animals were all in their nests, and their holes, and their hollows, and none ventured out to muse over Aragorn's body.

As for Aragorn, it seemed to him that all his pain and his weariness and even the cold were lifted from his body. He opened his eyes slowly, and before him was a vision of a place far, far away, and yet close for Aragorn was in its midst. The woods that had seemed so lifeless before were now beautiful beyond words. He gazed upon the green country, and he saw the trees in undimmed glory, taller and greener than what could be real, and the grass was filled with wildflowers.

The trees and the grass and the sky all shone with the same radiance, the brilliant glow that seemed to shine out of their very being. The light grew stronger until filled Aragorn's eyes, but he did not close them for it was beautiful.

From a distance it seemed suddenly that a shape was forming, as if crafted from the light itself. The shape darkened and came closer, and Aragorn knew who it was. Before him was Lord Elrond, but it was not the elf he had pictured before in a gilded chair. Instead it was the person who had cared for him in his youth and whom Aragorn loved as a father. There were tears in his elf's eyes as he looked upon him, the boy he had raised to the man, and Elrond bowed his head to Aragorn with the reverence and respect befitting a King.

Just as it came, the image seemed to fade and another started to form.

Aragorn turned his eyes, and there was his mother lying before him. She was old and her face was lined, for the years of care and sorrow had withered Gilraen before her time. She raised her hand to touch Aragorn's cheek and he could see the pride in her eyes, and the depth of love that she held for her child. She looked at him and smiled, and Aragorn saw that she had found her peace at last.

Her image faded as Lord Elrond's had, and Aragorn turned his eyes to see the one he had been waiting for.

Raven hair flew behind her as she ran to him, an image of the maiden he had seen in his youth, to whom he had called "Tinuviel, Tinuviel!". He caught her in his arms and raised her up. Her face was unchanged by the years, and her beauty was heightened by motherhood, for Aragorn heard children and he knew they were his. His hair was grey, but the joy in his face was unmistakable as he gazed upon the woman Aragorn knew was his wife.

And Aragorn's heart was filled with love, as he gazed on their faces, until it felt as if it would burst from his chest. The images in front of him paled until they were again part of the light, but the memory of their faces stayed, and the love he felt did not lessen.

As he thought of them, he became aware of his body, and took a long breath. The light parted and was pulled back from his vision like a curtain from a stage. He was lying in the snow again, looking up in the bright stars of the night, and the black branches over him.

But the light did not leave when it lifted from his vision. It seemed to Aragorn that it seeped into his body through his eyes, through his opened lips, through his very skin, until it was contained inside of him. He felt it reach to the very tips of his fingers and his toes, and it spread a new vigor through his body. He breathed again, and rose up to sit on the snow.

As he sat up, a flash of color caught his eye. On the top of a little hill behind him was the smallest amount of green. He must have passed it by when he had been walking before. Aragorn staggered to his feet, and made his way towards it. He could see the leaf clearly now, wavering gently in the wind, for it stood out vividly from the dark tree behind it. It was pale, the new green of a new leaf.

Then Aragorn knew the answer to his question.

The leaves did not grow back, for there was no coming back after this hard time, but they grew anew. Aragorn stumbled over a snow drift, but pushed himself up to continue towards the leaf. Was it even real? How could it be real? But it felt intensely important, more important than anything he had ever done, that Aragorn reach it, and he knew the Light inside of him was pulling him towards it. The leaf was young and small, but to Aragorn it seemed more beautiful than even the vision of the far green country that had come to him, for this leaf had survived the winter and come back the stronger for it.

There was no going back for Aragorn, for years had passed and his youth was gone, but there was going forward. His years had been spent nobly, protecting the people he loved and fulfilling his duty. He had seen his future, and it was all the sweeter for the hardships he endured now.

Aragorn toiled up the hill, and his limbs shook beneath him, but the Light kept him going and pulled him towards the leaf. He fell into a snow drift, but he pushed onward, pressing on ever towards the leaf.

Whatever it took, he realized, he would do whatever it took to truly be with them again, and it would be worth it. If he toiled for the rest of his life to create a peaceful world for them, it would be worth it. Aragorn fell to his knees in front of the leaf, and as he reached out to touch it he saw from the corner of his eye, far below him, the twinkling lights of Rivendell, the Last Homely House East of the Sea.


End file.
